America's Talking - Supreme Court Questions How Immunity Would Shape Presidency in Trump Case

Starting point is 00:00:00 Greetings and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Thursday, April 25th. Today, Supreme Court justices took up the case regarding presidential immunity and what a president can and can't do as president and whether or not he can be criminally charged. It's related to former President Donald Trump, who of course this week is standing trial in the state of New York over allegations he falsified campaign documents related to trying to quash the story of a sexual relationship with a former porn star. Joining me to discuss this is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Casey, you paid attention to the Supreme Court Justice and Arguments today. What happened? Yeah, it is a fascinating and possibly historic day for the U.S. Supreme Court and the Office of the president, really. What we saw were the justice is grappling with some foundational constitutional questions that really dated back to, you know, we're talking about, in a way that they don't always do, people like George Washington at the Supreme Court and the precedent that's been set by presidents. And so the real question here is, do presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution after they leave office? And if they do,

Starting point is 00:01:27 is that total immunity or is it partial? And if it's partial, how in the world do you determine what can be prosecuted and what can't? And so, you know, I found the arguments very interesting, Dan, they went down a lot of hypotheticals. Well, you know, could a president be prosecuted for a bribe or a coup or an assassination? Because what it really came down to, and we can, we can dig more into the details, Dan, but what it really came down to was what's the difference between a president acting in a official capacity and a personal capacity or a private capacity. And can they really be prosecuted for official acts, right? And so, of course, as it's relevant to former president Donald Trump, his work, especially around January 6th, has come into question, into criminal question,

Starting point is 00:02:16 criminal prosecution. And really, his lawyers have argued that he was acting in his official duties as president. And if you can, after the fact, prosecute a president for something. something they do in their official capacity, then presidents will be, you know, afraid to do anything, really. And it will actually be bad for the American people, it will be bad for the office. And he pointed up some really interesting examples in history, Dan, and I'll have you respond to this. We can talk more about the other side of this issue. The prosecution of Trump after this, but Trump's defense and lawyers brought up some good points of, for instance, former President Barack Obama, all the drone strikes that he ordered in the Middle East. Actually, American citizens were killed

Starting point is 00:02:54 accidentally by some of those drone strikes, could Obama be prosecuted for murder? I mean, American citizens died by a drone strike that he ordered. You know, Bush, it seems by all accounts that former President George Bush, in this argument was brought up as well, lied to Congress about the war in Iraq, right? Which, I mean, how many people died because of that? And so these previous examples were pretty easy to bring up. And it raised a question, you know, can you really prosecute someone for something they did in their official capacity as president? Definitely some interesting scenarios there. And I know justice has asked some hypothetical questions of attorneys for both sides. For example, what if a sitting president gave nuclear codes or something as dangerous as that to a foreign national? Could the sitting president be prosecuted for that? In Trump's case, in addition to the state charges that he's undergoing trial in in New York City right now, which is unrelated to official acts as his president, He does face charges in Washington, T.C., related to the January 6 protests and attacks at the

Starting point is 00:04:00 U.S. Capitol. He faces charges in Georgia related to alleged attempts to try and overturn the election there. He faces charges in Florida related to classified documents that were discovered at his Mar-a-Lago home. So President Trump essentially made this argument that he has full immunity from any prosecution after he was president. in your opinion, based on listening to your argument, I mean, could you tell if justices, obviously there are some more conservative justices, there are more liberal justices, if they're leaning one way or the other, this is a tricky one. I'll be honest with you. Yeah, I mean, I'm always a little hesitant to reading the crystal ball of the justices based on their questions, but if I had, if I was forced to, it did seem like they were pretty open to the idea of Trump having some level of immunity, of a president having. some kind of immunity now for official acts. And even John Roberts, who can be the swing vote, sometimes seemed open to that idea. Of course, there were tough questions, as there always are, and we can't really know for sure until the ruling comes out. But I would not be surprised after, you know, following these arguments if the justices did grant Trump some immunity. But it doesn't,

Starting point is 00:05:13 there's still sort of a middle road here, and the devil could be in the details of how much immunity do they try to draw some kind of line between personal acts and official acts? And if they do. How do you determine which is which? I mean, I don't think that there's any chance that they're going to grant immunity just on such a broad scale that even personal actions that a president commits would be like murdering his wife or something. I don't think they will give immunity that would cover that kind of thing. But, you know, there could be a lot of latitude on an official act. And of course, this is foundational Western civilization, Magna Carta 13th century. The king is subject to the laws as well. And so I don't think we're going to toss that out the window. But

Starting point is 00:05:53 on these official acts, they seemed pretty open, Dan, to giving leeway and really were concerned about the idea of political retribution that could come when an opposing party comes in office and maybe disagreed with the policy position. I'll give you another example. Could Trump come into office and prosecute, who would then be former President Biden for not enforcing the border policies? And did he break some law by not, by inviting so any illegal immigrants into the country? I mean, he could at least start open a prosecution. Right. House Republicans certainly say the law was broken in their impeachment for the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. Now, the charges were dismissed by the Senate.

Starting point is 00:06:33 And there actually was some back and forth about actual impeachment. Trump's attorneys argued that he would need to be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for criminal charges to be brought against him. That was part of the argument. Am I correct about that? Yeah, I mean, there's definitely that element. there's a lot of things going on here. I think that Mayorkas is a great point. And of course, Mayorkas, you could easily say acting in his official capacity, right? I mean, there's no doubt about that. But if you open that official capacity can of worms, I mean, you could really go down the rabbit trail. We don't have to bring up Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state, but was she

Starting point is 00:07:10 and her personal or public capacity with her handling of her emails? Of course, you know, there was a lot of calls for prosecuting her. So there's really a possible can of worms here. But I think both sides think there's a can of worms because if you give Trump or the president too much immunity, you could be setting up some pretty bad behavior in the future for future presidents, or at least that's the argument. One final question. We're just about out of time, Casey. So the Supreme Court justices did not issue it ruling today.

Starting point is 00:07:36 We expect one by the end of their term, late June maybe. Yeah, I mean, that is the norm. They could expedite it, of course, and they have expedited other major cases. But this is such a foundational and such a big case. That wouldn't be surprised. The future precedes that I would said would be huge. Yes, the precedent is incredible. Yes.

Starting point is 00:07:53 So I wouldn't be surprised if they take a little bit of time on this one. Casey, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecenter square.com. Are you tired of news that puts politics over people? At the nonprofit Franklin News Foundation, we believe in putting people over politics by delivering nonpartisan news and audio content that serves you, the American taxpayer. With Franklin News Foundation, you can. read fact-based state-focused news for free at thecentersquare.com. You can listen to civil,

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America's Talking - Supreme Court Questions How Immunity Would Shape Presidency in Trump Case

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